When will the BBC be held accountable for their lack of patriotism

How many Japanese people have ginger hair?

Evidence, please, for that last claim, claig...?

The why was to TCNY.

Don't you think that Japanese people share more genes in common than with English people? Don't you think that Swedish people share more genes in common than with Italian people?

We are all a mix of different genes, but most countries still have more similarities between their gene pool than with other countries. There are genetic differences between people.

'I feel enormous pride in English, and British things. But I reserve the [cosmopolitan] right to say these need critique. And that there is no 'must' about feeling this.'

Of course we all like different things. Not all of us like maypole dancing, but that is different from patriotism. We don't have to support the royal family, we can still be patriotic without that. I also believe that migrants can feel the same pride. Norman Tebbitt comes from Dutch roots and he is patriotic for Britain.

claig - the whole POINT (if there can be said to be such a thing) of culture and society is to allow us to transcend instinctive behaviour. Even if something is 'natural' - that wouldn't make it good.

Our brains evolved to allow us to function in small groups corresponding to 4-5 family groups living together - so we feel comfortable in groups about that size. Everything beyond that we have had to develop strategies to cope with.

you don't need a degree in maths to work out that if you keep doubling, your ancestors very quickly become a very large group of people. I don't know who all my great grandparents are and there were only 8 of them, and that only takes me back to the end of the 19th century: going back further than that I have no idea who my ancestors were.

How could I possibly have a "gene" identity?

Limiting my comment to the 2018 World Cup issue. John Sargent on Question Time just gave a very good answer.

The BBC had to transmit the allegation of corruption before the vote otherwise it would have looked like sour grapes if we had not been awarded the 2018 World Cup and then the BBC put the programe out after.

I generally am not BBC supporter but they did the right thing.

Why to which bit?

Is the why at me? It's because we've all been fucking each other for the last 10,000 years.

Why?

claig, there is no such thing as a genetic desire to be part of a particular community

swc, contingent in the sense of being dependent on the 'idea' of nationality (ie a social and political fiction). In contrast to the idea that nationality is some kind of inevitable, natural extension of our biology.

And if you accept that nations are contingent, then logically, you have to accept that they are also flexible.

Which means there is no 'core' to our patriotism. No 'inevitable' set of things that English people HAVE to be allied to.

If you accept that there is no inevitability to the kinds of things we are patriotic about, then it allows more cosmopolitanism and not necessarily self-hatred. Self-hatred assumes a lack of pride etc.

I feel enormous pride in English, and British things. But I reserve the [cosmopolitan] right to say these need critique. And that there is no 'must' about feeling this.

And I also believe strongly, contra claig, that migrants can also feel this pride, precisely because they don't have to have a biological connection to nationalism.

Claig - Genes are a terrible indicator of nationality.

LadyBlaBlah, yes it could be that you are right , but I believe that is is based on the shared gene impulse, just as in fsmilies. Does Social Identity Theory involve genes at all, or is it just any old social group?

Soooo, Social Identity Theory then.

It is in our genes to care for our families, because they share our genes. Our communities are extensions of our families, so it is also natural to care for them. However, it is not genetic to be patriotic to England, for example, because if an English child was taken as an orphan to France and knew nothing of England, then they would grow up as a French patriot, because they would be influenced by teh French cultural community. The natural desire to be part of a group of shared genes would lead them to be patriotic for France.

So yes I agree that love of country is cultural based on the natural inclination to associate with groups with shared genes. In Ancient Greece, there were no countries, but rather city states and tribes and the allegiance was to those and it was cultural based on the underlying natural inclination.

swc, I don't particularly want a coherent national identity, I want a contingent one. And a cosmopolitan identity.

Yes, we never talk much about colonialism. Or even why the Irish might be so pissed off.

Selective indeed

Claig - I don't at all assume that all rightwing people are rich; this would be as ludicrous as saying that all leftwing people are from one stratum or another.

But nor can you deny that the values associated with the rich of that period were undoubtedly rightwing.

I'm all for keeping the "flame of liberty" alive. I just think that true liberty means you don't have to think what you're told to think by people who think that their premise is "right". And you seem to do exactly this.

But I really can't believe that I've spent all of several minutes arguing with you when I should really be wrapping my dh's birthday presents.

Looking at english history alone wouldn't be enough to understand many key historical events. You would find it very difficult to study the causes of WW2 without looking at the rise of Nazism for example.

No, claig, those things made you, and me, and ALL the British (and Americans and CAribbeans) what we are: we are all mongrels.

There is simply no such thing as 'natural', genetic biological nationality, in the same way there is no such thing as biological race.

It is about cultural experience.

So the 'we' that you talk of is entirely dependent on who gets described as 'we', who gets to tell the stories. And history is always the stories of the winners as I'm sure you know.

So. We should - of course - educate our children in patriotism for our French, Viking and German origins? Our Jewish, Afro-caribbean and Irish origins? Our patriotism for the beautiful English countryside? But also for all the poor dead peasants who were moved off it to make way for the landlords who could afford to make it beautiful? Our raping and pillaging of foreign lands to make 'us' rich?

Patriotism is always very selective I feel...

I really haven't got the time to read this whole thread, but I have to say I find the OP very offensive; "speak in hushed awe about the majesty of our traditions. Presenters who are over-awed by the silent beauty of our countryside," are you having a laugh? This is not the 18th century you know?

The Monarchy haven't earned their privileges you know, it's just dumb luck.

I hope this is a joke